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Periodontitis and heart disease

There's a link between gum disease and heart disease - researchers at Columbia University are investigating whether the link is the gum inflammation or the bacteria causing it.

19 09 2005

The classic comic's line about dentists is that they tell you your teeth are okay but your gums need to come out. But it ain't so funny when it's true. The condition's called periodontitis and is a chronic infection of the gums which can threaten the teeth.

And according to some researchers people with gum disease are at risk of heart disease as well. One reason may be that smoking is a risk factor for both but even then, periodontitis seems to stand up in it's own right.

Other reasons are that the gum germs infect the coronary arteries or the heart muscle or that the infection in the gums makes some people's immune system overreact producing inflammation elsewhere - such as in the arteries.

A study in New York is looking at normal healthy people, measuring the bacteria in their mouths, their coronary risk factors and the thickness of the carotid artery in the neck which can be a measure of arterial health.

Preliminary findings suggest that bacteria linked to periodontitis are associated with carotid thickening. This is a long way from cause and effect but does firm up the gum disease story, whatever the explanation.